Play sets for toy vehicles are popular toys which are known to provide entertainment and excitement to a user. These play sets typically include a track configuration intended to guide a propelled toy vehicle, such as a small scale die-cast metal toy vehicle, through a course. The track configurations include closed-loop continuous track arrangements and open-end arrangements. Toy vehicles are placed on these play set tracks and propelled across the configuration by hand or by an external propulsion means or gravity.
To bring increased entertainment and excitement to play sets, track configurations may include features such as loop segments and other types of track configurations known in the art. Loop segments have been of the centrifugal type where a free running toy vehicle is directed through a vertically oriented loop by building up sufficient speed approaching the loop in order to maintain the vehicle in contact with the track through the inversion portion of the loop.
Additionally, attempts have been made at incorporating jumps into these race sets by which a traveling toy vehicle is briefly separated from the track to ultimately rejoin the track at a downstream location. However, these attempts have been limited due to the complexities of ensuring that the launched toy vehicle lands on the downstream track segment in a proper orientation to thus allow the vehicle to continue its course of travel.
Accordingly, a play set for toy vehicles is desired which can provide the entertainment and excitement by generating different types of loops from those normally used and which additionally include provisions for launching and a toy vehicle onto a track in a proper orientation to allow continuous play.